The greatest way to "honor the fallen" would be to put our military in harms way only as a last resort.
No one wants to die! The military personnel who have fallen would surely have preferred to live. When I visited the cemetery at Omaha Beach and viewed the graves of the "fallen" whom I knew over 60 years ago, my thought was: I have lived longer since their deaths than they did in their lives. That they died in a war against an enemy that had to be defeated there is no doubt. That they did not die in vain, of that there is no doubt. But they are dead!
I humbly think that I can speak for the war dead. I think that they would say: I didn't want to die even though I knew that my death by serving in a combat outfit was possible, if not probable. I think that our leaders should never put military lives in mortal danger unless there is no alternative.
